On Thursday morning, May 17th, the entire school community and stakeholders from the local town convened a Global Climate Change Summit. A thread that ran through the summit was the showing of excerpts from the film, Nobelity.
The high point of the day was a presentation by an 8th grade student inspired by Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. This 8th grader at the age of 14 was the youngest of one thousand trained directly by Al Gore to spread the essential learnings from Inconvenient Truth. The student was more polished and had better materials than most adult presenters. The arguments were compelling. Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to list what I learned from the summit. I'll make that the topic for a future entry. In the meantime, check out the links and think about how this summit was an example of civic action.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Introduction
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. "
Margaret Mead
Today I worked with one of my high school students seeding and fertilizing the only cemetery in town, planting black forest trees for an older couple, and cleaning out a woman's attic so she could hold a garage sale. At $10 an hour we were earning money for our school's scholarship fund. We rent ourselves out to the community as a way to raise funds for our graduates' higher education.
I was happy to be working for a good cause. I felt more connected to the community. I know I'll run into these folks again in the coffee shop or library - what better way to bring us all closer. There was history to learn. For example, Estes Valley Memorial Gardens was created by a local effort to bury folks who felt at home in Estes Park rather than having to go to cemeteries on the front range.
In the end, the thing I found most remarkable in terms of civic action was that my company supported this as my day of work. Am I correct in thinking this is an untapped source of civic action? Could more businesses support civic action?
Margaret Mead
Today I worked with one of my high school students seeding and fertilizing the only cemetery in town, planting black forest trees for an older couple, and cleaning out a woman's attic so she could hold a garage sale. At $10 an hour we were earning money for our school's scholarship fund. We rent ourselves out to the community as a way to raise funds for our graduates' higher education.
I was happy to be working for a good cause. I felt more connected to the community. I know I'll run into these folks again in the coffee shop or library - what better way to bring us all closer. There was history to learn. For example, Estes Valley Memorial Gardens was created by a local effort to bury folks who felt at home in Estes Park rather than having to go to cemeteries on the front range.
In the end, the thing I found most remarkable in terms of civic action was that my company supported this as my day of work. Am I correct in thinking this is an untapped source of civic action? Could more businesses support civic action?
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